


Scars

by pinesbrosfalls (fangirl0430)



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Mentions of blood and violence, Mullet Stan Pines, Panic, Paranoia, Paranoid Ford Pines, Pre-reunion, Stangst, multiple POV switches indicated by horizontal line, not really any "plot" per-say, this is just something that's been on my mind for a while, this is literally just straight up angst, very train of thought driven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 10:01:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15603873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirl0430/pseuds/pinesbrosfalls
Summary: Scar (noun): a lasting effect of grief, fear, or other emotion left on a person's character by a traumatic experience





	Scars

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: [Cicatrices](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18147605) by [DaraDjinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaraDjinn/pseuds/DaraDjinn)



Not all injuries are created equal.

Six years later, and he knows that one thing for sure.

Some burn and fester. Others don’t leave a mark.

Some color the skin in blotches of purples and blues. Others drip red and red and _so much red_.

Some he can see coming from miles away. Others are an unexpected sucker-punch that leaves him gasping and grasping for a lifeline, for air.

Some heal in as little as a day. Others leave jagged scars, reminders.

It’s a punch that maybe turned out to be a little more than just that, leaving cold metal buried in his shoulder up to the hilt, his shirt stained crimson as rivulets stream down his fingers.

_Gotta stop the bleeding first. Old, torn-up shirt should do the trick. Use that bottle of whiskey in the backseat nabbed from the convenience store to clean it. Needle and thread in the glove compartment. Bite down hard and try not to scream too loud in case—_

In two weeks, he could cut the thread out.

In four, he’d picked off the majority of the scabs.

In a few months, all that was left was a thin white line.

It’s one of many.

He’s not sure what, exactly, they’re meant to be reminders of.

The memories are recollection enough.

The nightmares more so.

He can imagine that, at this rate, he’ll be covered from head to toe in thin, white reminders within another decade.

A lot of guys like him are.

It’s the nature of the life, he guesses.

_Not that he ever wanted this—_

Pain comes easy. It’s not fun, but it’s quick, and it’s easy to forget once the day is out. Pain is tolerable.

It’s the healing that takes forever, and _that_ ’s what he can’t stand.

It’s slow and tedious and requires a certain delicacy that he never could understand.

Which is why he’ll still hop back in the ring not even a few days after taking a hit that made his ears ring and his teeth rattle in his skull, throwing punches through the fog in his stupid brain until a fist he _swears_ he saw coming, he _swears_ it, sends him down to the mat so hard that he doesn’t even remember hitting the ground.

He eats well that night.

And the next.

His head feels like cotton and words come a bit slower than they did before, and maybe it feels like there’s something pushing against the inside of his skull and making the back of his eyes hurt.

But it’s the first burger he’s had in _months_ that he’s actually been able to _pay_ for.

And if losing can get you so much money…

Maybe it’s worth it.

Maybe.

Sometimes, he lets himself forget the thin, white reminders, just for a moment.

_It’s six years later. Six years, and he still remembers how cold the concrete was when he was tossed out onto it, his things landing in a heap next to him. Six years, and he still remembers the color of the curtains when two hands, twelve fingers, yanked them closed…_

_Red and red and so much red._

His memory was never the best anyways.

* * *

He wakes up.

He never went to sleep, but he wakes up anyways.

It’s the first piece of the puzzle that _clacks_ on the floor before the rest of the box is flipped upside down and unceremoniously dumped on the tile around him, a barrage of pains and fears and questions slamming into him before the haze of sleep has fully cleared.

He wakes up.

At this point, he’s almost surprised he can do that much anymore.

_Up._

A soft sigh morphs into a pained groan, and he remembers for the umpteenth time why his blood is practically nothing but coffee at this point.

He wakes up, and the first thing he knows to do is to take inventory. Even if he doesn’t know what the final picture is supposed to be, the least he can do is sort the puzzle pieces and go from there.

_Find the edge pieces. Build the frame._

His fingers are frozen, but his palms are on fire, hash marks of red running jagged lines across the skin. Barbed wire. Again. Nothing works, and the machine is probably halfway fueled at this point.

Tender spots scattered across his back and shoulders and arms and legs and more places than he could reasonably count.

His head pounds.

A hard pressure behind his right eye, the taste of copper in the back of his throat.

A twinge of pain in his left ankle.

_There are only 3 corner pieces._

_Sort the middle pieces by color and shape._

The postcard was in the mail days ago.

Where’s the first journal?

Drain the machine again before something worse can happen.

Ran out of gauze a long time ago.

Half a bag of coffee grounds left _can he make it that long?_

So cold.

_Every piece is the same color._

Can’t even trust his own body anymore.

Crossbow. Need the drawstring even tighter.

When was the last time he ate som—

_Every piece is the same goddamn color. Count the sides._

Cut the phone lines. No blindsides, no distractions, no leverage.

Can’t trust anyone.

Always check the eyes. Remember to check the eyes. Always check. Always ch—

_1 2 3. 1 2 3. 1 2 3. 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2312312312312312312312312—_

He wakes up.

He never went to sleep, but he wakes up anyways.

He wakes up to a nightmare.

_The puzzle pieces were never going to fit together anyways._

_There are only 3 corner pieces._

He wakes up.

He…

He wakes up.

* * *

In the end, a postcard is all it takes.

A small piece of cardstock, two words scrawled in frantic handwriting that doesn’t entirely belong to a brother ~~that left him~~ that he left ~~ten years~~ ~~eleven~~ ~~twelve~~ an eternity ago, an address in the corner.

It… hurts. More than he thinks it should. In ways he could never expect.

The first time he was in a gun fight, his name was Andrew, and Rico had to help him stitch up a bullet graze on the side of his face. It wasn’t pretty, but Rico was good, and it looked decent enough in the end, no matter how much his eyes watered and how badly his jaw hurt when all was said and done.

_Vivirás, Bola Ocho._

_You’ll live._

They were halfway to the border when they’d realized he’d left the money behind on accident.

He doesn’t remember the punch connecting with his jaw as much as he remembers the fire tearing across the side of his face as the careful stitches ripped through.

At the time, he’d never felt anything so painful in his life.

Just thinking about it is enough to make the side of his face itch and burn even now.

Rico had tossed him a needle and thread, told him to go fix himself up again before they reached border patrol, that the money would just be a debt for him to pay off.

It’d taken him close to thirty minutes to get it done, his blood- and tear-soaked fingers shaking and slipping on the needle the entire time. Thirty minutes.

_A punch to the face. A postcard in the mail._

_Not much of a difference if you really put your mind to it._

Healing takes forever.

It’s been an eternity, but he guesses those stitches still weren’t ready to come out.

The postcard was slipped under his door anyways.

It rips open something raw and ragged, some gnarling and twisted seed of resentment that still looks surprisingly like hope when he shuts his eyes and recalls a beach covered in glass and a boat on the rocks, shouts of “ _high six_ ” bouncing around his head like echoes from a distant past life.

He wants to be mad.

He _should be_ mad.

He _is_ mad.

It feels like betrayal, the way he wants to rip the damn summons to pieces, and yet he’s already throwing the few things he owns into his bag and grabbing his car keys to head out the door.

He’s _mad_ , damnit. He _is_.

_High six?_

_Don’t leave me hanging…_

He drives at least fifteen miles per hour above the speed limit the entire way there.

* * *

It’s the day before he gets a soft knock on the front door, but he already can’t remember the last time he shut his eyes for more than a moment. The last time he ate. The last time he set foot outside. The last time his entire body wasn’t numb from the cold. The last time he’d spoken to another living person. The last time he’d had something to drink besides black coffee. The last time he hadn’t been in some kind of _pain_ —

Sleep has become the enemy.

He has the cuts and bruises to prove it.

Sleep is dangerous.

It’s a war fought in the fearful silence, the stretches of time when he’s too exhausted to pace and is just trying to brew another pot of pure bitter caffeine, when he’s watching the knots in the wood walls and they start to watch him back so he digs out a butter knife and saws an “X” over them and then swears he’s forgotten something, and didn’t he just make that pot of coffee why is there mold, and he swears he’s forgetting something, so he makes a new pot and paces a new rut in the floor boards until he can’t remember what he’s sworn he forgot

~~There’s a page in the third journal that he’s completely scribbled out. He doesn’t remember scribbling it out. He doesn’t remember, but he remembers writing and the eyes and yet he can’t even read what he wrote and he lost his red ink pen so long ago so _what was he writing with_ —~~

The coffee’s done, but it’s barely warm and he drinks three cups anyways before pouring a third (?) and carrying it in shaky hands back to his study to work.

It’s easy to forget about yourself when there’s so much more on the line.

Why make a sandwich when a cup of coffee will do so much more good?

Coffee staves off the demons for a little longer.

The clock on the mantle ticks off every second he wastes not figuring out a way to stop—

He can’t sleep, so he counts the seconds instead.

_Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Eighteen. Nineteen._

The clock is skipping, or is that what records do? He doesn’t remember. Fiddleford used to listen to music. Not him. He wonders how he’s—

_Eighteen. Nineteen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Eighteen. Eighteen. Eighteen. Six. Eighteen._

He has to think. He hasn’t lost yet. He’s still awake. He’s still awake. He’ll never remember falling asleep but he’s still awake. ~~He hopes he hopes he hopes~~ He’s still awake.

_Open another window._

He put the postcard in the mail a week ago maybe he should be looking for a more reliable option.

_Stupid stupid stup—_

_This is too important. How could he think to trust_ him _of all_ —

_Stop._

His foot stills, the tap-tap-tapping on the wood floor going silent with it. The house is quiet, the only sounds coming from the howl of the wind against the exterior walls, the wood creaking and groaning with each gust of the blizzard.

_Don’t open a window. The snow could… Someone could…_

He needs to think.

_Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Eighteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Eighteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Eighteen. Seventeen. Eight—_

He blinks hard, shaking himself to clear his head.

He… He needs to think.

A sip of lukewarm coffee. The bitterness settles in the back of his throat.

He needs to think.

* * *

_Thirty years._

_It’s almost funny,_ he can’t help but think.

_Thirty freaking years._

There’s not greeting, no thanks, not even a smile, just another unexpected—

…

He still remembers how badly his shoulder burned all those years ago.

Consider the scar a reminder.

_Thirty years, and the first thing he does is…_

He can’t believe he expected anything different.

**Author's Note:**

> *throws this and _runs_ *
> 
> Just an idea that's been simmering the back of my mind for a while and I thought I'd take a day or two to get it out.
> 
> Check me out on [Tumblr](https://pinesbrosfalls.tumblr.com/)!


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